The most anticipated game of the evening. Iowa vs South Carolina. Caitlin Clark vs Aliyah Boston. Logo shots vs power in the paint. There was so much hype around this game and it didn’t disappoint.

At the tip I was wondering how Iowa would defend, and they made it clear from the start that their defensive strategy was to plug the paint and dare the South Carolina guards to shoot. Iowa discovered South Carolina’s weakness and exploited it so much that I started to feel really bad for Raven Johnson, Caitlin Clark was her defender but she made it clear that she wasn’t worried about Raven actually shooting it, at one point she even kinda flicked her hand, kinda saying “I’m not worried about you”.

It was clear that South Carolina wanted to get the ball in the paint but its kinda hard to do that when you have 4 or 5 Iowa players sagging back with active hands.

Aaliyah Boston got in early foul trouble and sat for most of the first half. South Carolina was able to stay in the game by Zia Cooke really showing up and showing out… Also Kamilla Cardoso really helped out. Making sure that she was crashing the boards and making her shots.

On the other end Iowa was doing what Iowa, running everything the Caitlin Clark and that was working sooo well. I love watching a Caitlin Clark and Monika Czinano pick and roll, they got so many open layups off of that you would think that South Carolina would be able to stop it but its a catch 22. If one of the wing defenders rotates down low to help, Clark will just pass it for the, and we all know how good Iowa is at threes, so we know how that would have turned out.

Caitlin did what Caitlin does, make crazy shots, pass and drive to the basket. And even though South Carolina has great permitter defenders they just couldn’t stop it.

In the 3rd quarter I thought that South Carolina was getting back into the game Raven Johnson started making a couple of 3s which meant that Caitlin Clark stopped sagging off of her as much, she was still sagging but her moving a couple steps from the paint freed up some space in the paint. One thing to note is that Aliyah Boston started getting double teamed when she would catch the ball down low, she did score a bit but between her foul trouble and Iowa doubling and really plugging the paint, Aliyah Boston just wasn’t very effective today, primarily because of the fouls.

The game stayed close in the forth, coming down to a long offensive rebound from Iowa that really iced this game.

Iowa’s coach Lisa Bluder gave her team a masterful defensive game plan and when you got that AND Caitlin clark, your chances of winning is really high.

Now we are on to the championship Iowa VS LSU. Will Iowa use the same defensive strategy against LSU, will LSU be able to stop Caitlin Clark? So many questions and only one way to find out. Let’s see what happens on Sunday!

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